Timothy Spangler: Seeing a post-Castro Cuba

Fidel Castro, left, and his brother, Cuba's President Raul Castro, talk during the opening session of the National Assembly in Havana, Cuba, Feb. 24. The Cuban president accepted a new five-year term that will be, he said, his last and tapped rising star Miguel Diaz-Canel, 52, as vice president and first in the line of succession. ASSOCIATED PRESS PHOTO

Although plans can always change, Cubans took notice this week when President Raul Castro, brother of former leader Fidel Castro, announced his intention to retire in five years. As a demonstration that a post-Castro era may soon be at hand for the Caribbean country, Raul Castro appointed Miguel Diaz-Canel, only 52, as vice president and his official successor.

The symbolic power of these gestures should not be dismissed out of hand. By announcing that his current term in the National Assembly would be his last, Raul Castro has set 2018 as the potential transition date to a Cuba governed by neither of the brothers, who were each instrumental in the 1959 revolution. Further, Diaz-Canel's elevation represents a shift away from the revolutionary generation to a younger, and potential less ideologically driven, set of opinions and strategic priorities.

Raul took over running the communist dictatorship when Fidel became ill in 2006, after more than 47 years in charge. Fidel's health has been a recurring debating point between supporters and opponents of the regime. Photographs of Fidel, holding a recent newspaper in his hand, have been published by state media in the past as a way of reassuring Cubans that their former leader is alive and well. Despite his weakened state, Fidel made his first public appearance in almost two years in early February, when he was photographed and interviewed as he cast his ballot in the most recent elections.

Of course, Vice President Diaz-Canel and other Castro family members have been, and remain, at the center of power. Critics have been quick to play down rising expectations that Cuba is getting ready for an about-face that would result from turning its back on its long socialist history.

To the surprise of many of these critics, though, real change is occurring in Cuba under Raul Castro's watch, despite initial concerns that he might be even more hard-line in his communist beliefs than his brother. In recent years, Cuba has taken incremental steps to liberalize and reform an economy overwhelmed by centralization. This has allowed small private businesses to emerge, in rudimentary fashion, which may well become the foundation for more market-based solutions. Equally important, simple exercises of personal freedom, such as the ability of a Cuban to buy and sell his car or her house, are now possible in Raul's Cuba.

However, Cuba cannot be confused with an actual democracy. Despite recently adopted term limits that prevent a cabal of leaders from hanging on at the top for too long, a Cuban ballot does grant voters much in the way of options. There are no opposition parties, and only one candidate, approved by the Communist Party, is listed for each office. Dissent can be registered only by not checking the box next to a particular candidates name or by leaving the entire ballot blank.

For those Cubans insufficiently motivated to fill in each of the boxes, there is even a convenient "yes-to-all" box that can be checked, as a time-saving device!

Cuba has long been a hot-button issue in U.S. politics. Its proximity to the American mainland has meant that Cuba's communist government and, more particularly, its close relations with the Soviets during the Cold War, has been a thorn in the side of successive White House administrations, whether Democratic or Republican, for more than half a century. From the 1962 missile crisis under John F Kennedy, to perennial battles within and outside the Beltway over the trade embargo against the small island, Cuba has had a constant and cumulative effect on American politics far in excess of its actual strategic impact on international affairs and diplomatic priorities.

In the end, Cuba's nearness to the American mainland has always swelled the Cuban question curiously out of proportion. To many American voters, and the representatives they sent to Washington, threats nearby should never be tolerated and, preferably, relegated to another continent, in another hemisphere.

Recent Cuban history would have been much different had the island been located off the coast of Chile or Somalia or Thailand.

When it comes to avowed communists in Beijing, or Hanoi, U.S. officials are more than willing to do a roaring trade with the dictators of these countries.

At the same time, Cuba remains a pariah. The argument that increased trade will ultimately weaken the ability of despotic regimes to oppress their citizens seems not to apply when that despotic regime is a short boat ride from the Florida Keys.

Cuba's government is in many ways a relic from an era that for most of the world ended two decades ago. Other than Hugo Chavez in oil-rich Venezuela, few are rallying today to the flag of Marx and Engels and Lenin and Castro. The appeal of political revolution is clearly not what it once was.

Change will inevitably come to Cuba. Status quos are incredibly difficult to maintain at the best of times. The forces of globalization and technology will eventual break through the barricade surrounding Cuba.

The most important question, therefore, is how a future Havana government will handle the transition from central control to individual choice. And how the government at that time in Washington can best support this transition.

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